The Power of Emotional Blackmailers.

I realize this is very random post, but I just wanted to stop by at this early time in the morning before I got back to bed and others get up to start their day and say a couple of things.

After being online for most of tonight although not on much during the day, I have found myself thinking about dysfunctional families with parents and/or siblings who use emotional blackmail against us via the ingredients of F.O.G. (fear obligation and guilt).

First, thinking about that led me to coin a new phrase F.O.G.y parents and F.O.G.y relatives. The emotional blackmailers who use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to manipulate and control or at least try to even when there are good boundaries.

Second, thinking about this reminded me how hard it is to make even the smallest choices like taking baby steps in a new direction contrary to the F.O.G.y relative or some other F.O.G.y person(s) in their life is.

Third, thinking about this led me to write a new post in the "On My Mind" section of my wall that says " In offering others help be wisely caring while being empathetically compassionate Let them know you care regardless of their choices."

In seeking to care for other caregivers as a caregiver and to care for my own self, I find tonight's reflections have been a good thing for my own soul.

A few more things.

1. Try not to over identify with him by making comments like "If I were you, I would not pay for your daughter's law school." That does not really help and it invalidates how hard it is for him to make such a major change right now. He may well have to start with small changes at first and build up to some big ones.

2. Find somewhere you two can talk with no distractions.

3. If he has not gotten it from reading the thread, the try to help him understand that he has experienced emotional abuse most recently from his grown daughter. Try to point out some specific examples from what he's told you about his life and what he read in this thread.

4. Acknowledge that abuse is very scary and very difficult to deal with. He does not need to feel that your zeal to save him as a form of emotional pressure to hurry up and make this decision as if it were just that easy to do.

5. Reassure your friend that the abuse is not his fault. He did not do anything that caused people to emotionally abuse him. He did not deserve it and he deserves a better life and is a valuable person in his own right.

6. Remind him that he is not alone, that there is help and a way out for others have faced the same thing and over came it.

7. Be supportive and listen patiently realizing how difficult it is to talk about abuse.

8. Let him know that you are available to help him within certain boundaries which you need to decide upon earlier.

9. It's his choice to deal with the emotional abuse in his life and respect whatever his choice is. Try to be non-judgmental if he chooses not to deal with the emotional abuse in his life. It is his choice and it is a very hard choice to make. That is why the longer a person has been emotionally blackmailed by someone, the harder it is for them to make the best choices for their own well being.

10. Let him know that whatever he chooses to do, that you will still be his friend.

If you find yourself getting stuck or emotionally overwhelmed, then talk with your therapist how to handle it.

Maybe it's time for a new thread, something like How to Help a Victim of F.O.G.y relatives.

10. Encourage him to participate in activities and relationships outside of where the emotional abuse is coming from.

11.

I hope he gains some insight about his plight from reading this thread. Hopefully, he will want to discuss what he has read. That will be a big first step.

One important thing to keep in mind is that we can offer people help, but we can only help them if they ask for our help and we can only help them as far as they are willing to deal with things which can take time and requires patience plus unconditional detached concern. I'm probably reminding you of things that you already know.

Try to come across as someone who has faced similar battles and from what you have learned and gained freedom by what you have learned, you would like to share with him as a fellow journeyer fighting this battle as well. Don't go too deep into that or he will get all focused on you instead of staying focused on what he needs help with. That will hopefully keep him open to receiving your help while not feeling like you are his savior or become overly dependent upon you because no one has appreciated him like you are which feelings can cloud his mind from using the advice to move forward and become more emotionally focused on you. Be careful.

I hope that when he talks with you that he will say that he sees where this applies to his life. If he's willing to be that open, then you can share how you have had to deal with this dynamic in your own life. However, try to turn the conversation back to him talking about his own journey soon instead of it getting lost in talking about your situation. Validate his emotions without over identifying with them or absorbing them. Where it appears to be needed ask him questions based on the content of the thread and what he's talked about which may lead him to more insights.

Be careful to keep this relationship within proper boundaries given your saying that he's not had any one appreciate him in years until you came along. I think that you will only be able to carry him so far or he may read more into the relationship than is there. At some point, given how beat down he is, he really needs to see a professional therapist. When and if you reach the point where you can encourage him to see a therapist emphasize that you are not abandoning him and you will still be his friend, but that you can't take him as far on his own journey as a therapist can because they are trained to deal with this sort of thing. If you have already said something about going to a therapist in talking about your own journey, it would be good to remind him of that and state how helpful seeing a therapist has been for you in your journey.

Keep a level head in all of this and I wish you the best as you seek to help him and see him saved out of his many years of being abused. If he doesn't accept your insights and what this thread has to say right at first, that does not mean you have failed. It means you may have to wait for him to get ready and when he is, he will talk.

I hope he refuses to pay for his grown daughter's desire to go to law school. She has two children and needs to look for another job and raise her children. Lawyers are a dime a dozen and the job market for them is terrible. Plus, law school is very expensive.

I have a good friend that I sent this thread to. He was in an abusive marriage for 40 years and now is taking care of his mother (92) and grown daughter with 2 kids and just lost her job. He just paid for her to get her MBA and 2 other degrees and now she wants to go to law school. She is 39 years old and treats him like a dog, until she wants something, of course. He has had no one appreciate him for years until I came into his life. Now I want to save him. It breaks my heart to see such a fine person be used. His mother has nursing home insurance but wants to stay at home. He has 1 sister that lives out of state and does not help him at all. Any advise on trying to save someone who is in a F.O.G.?

Very good! Sometimes it is quite an issue for the other spouse to deal with their FOGy parents and to not try to fight their battle for them because it is their war not ours although their not fighting it does effect us as spouses. I am glad that you have told him that you will not live in their FOG! A few people, unfortunately, never seem to get the fact that they need to respect your boundaries and with them the consequences of boundary breaking have to be more severe. It took my wife a long time to come to terms with her FOGy mom, and I think that might have started when I set boundaries around myself and our boys that we had some practical ways in which we were not going to live in her mom's FOG and at one point that involved the consequence of me taking the boys away and our going some where else to live for awhile. That got her attention because she had agreed to those boundaries as well but could/would not keep them under pressure.

My husband and I are both adult children of alcoholics married to narcissists that were raised to rescue our parents/be enablers. I can tell you what worked with me and my mother - I moved out at 18 and didn't speak to her for almost 20 years. My requirements to rebuild relationship were (1) accept responsibility for not stopping abusive behavior by stepfather; (2) quit drinking VOLUNTARILY and (3) respect my boundaries as a daughter and parent. We were able to build a relationship as adults with respect for each other but I had to give up being a child looking for Mommy to take care of me and love me "best". My husband had not managed to do that with his parents and it was beginning to really affect our relationship until very recently. He is finally seeing that his parents will not spontaneously grow up and quit being narcissists. The biggest change has been my putting the responsibility of caring/maintaining relationship back onto my husband for his parents and letting him know that I will not live in their FOG. You have to remember only you can make yourself change and that others will only give you the respect and boundaries that you are willing to maintain.

one doesnt have to read many newspapers to come to the conclusion that were all a little bit nuts . i try to compare my life to the few people i know and associate with and it never fails to leave me feeling a little better about myself . a good example is a 55 yr old frame carpenter who i work with from time to time . lately hes been talking about trying to shoot down the surveilance drones that hes sure are stalking him , then this week he purchased a 2015 camaro with a custom built 427 cu in engine . its a slushy , dreary day here today and im not in the most chipper of moods but my gosh , i dont have a 35 k automobile to pay for with a loan at shark interest rates and the perceived surveilance drones really arent bothering me a bit . at worst they see me dragging in firewood in my underware and unlaced boots .
then theres the fellow im working for whos building a half million dollar home .
it makes me think these two individuals are trying to buy happiness . it makes my self medicating seem harmless by comparison .
it all reminds me of a great alice cooper video . " man of the year " .

the queen made me a knight ,
the pope made me a saint .
the president plays golf with me , i made madonna faint .
so why am i so lonely , depressed and in despair ,
if i pulled this trigger in my mouth would anybody care ?

oh well . its a great video and it reinforces what im getting at . to quote steven king " we all hang by a thread " . ( mentally / emotionally )

gladimhere, I would doubt it since you are asking the question. A person who does this kind of thing usually lacks any self-awareness about their actions.

Magnum, now you have me wondering if I am the one that created all of the dysfunction with my sibs.

Although my Narc Mom has problems now in her new abode after having been upstaged by a much worse case of Narcissism, and has some physical problems, she and I are getting along TONS better now. I have learned not to react to behavior that I don't like. I don't get as provoked as I did. I don't fuel her junk with my own defensive garbage. She still is annoying but I stay firm and calm as I can. I give her love and a hug and use humor and jokes to diffuse her needling me. We are having a much better time together.

Detaching from the old patterns (hers and mine) helps me allow the darts that fly just go past me without me taking them in with self pity or blame, or having to be right (defensive). Part of dealing with her is learning how I have developed my own dysfunctional behavior and to be more and more responsible (to myself) for that. The growth has to do between me and God and no one else. Since I believe that God has more understanding and patience than most humans I can relax and not be intimidated or fearful of my own process. I don't judge myself with so much weight anymore. Some days I do great, and sometimes my patience wears thin.

I find that if I am well rested and well fed, I do a lot better with her. The more relaxed I am she now seems more at ease. I really am amazed that we made as much progress as we have.

What this site has done for me is to not feel alone in this relationship. I was convinced that I'd be trapped and manipulated til either she dies or I do. Now love can grow again.

She'll never be what I wish to be and I'll never be the whimp she wishes me to be. That's ok. I don't feel guilty! I am freer. I hope this inspires others to grow in this difficult relationship.

Wonderful thread. Thanks for the great information. emjo23, you are so right about "No narcissist blames him or her self". So many great people on this site. I have learned so much and it has helped me cope better. I DO want my sibs to love me, but it is not going to happen and I need to accept this. It makes me sad, but not enough to take abuse from them.

cmagnum: Agree. And, with NPD only fairly recently coming into the public spotlight as a mental illness, alot of psychologists and psychotherapists don't have enough training or background info. to effectively treat this. Combine this with a narcissists ability to manipulate, hide their mental illness, and blindside people, it's a hard pathology to treat. And as you stated, people with BPD and NPD tend to stop therapy when a therapist gets too close to exposing their pathology or recommending changes that the narcissist doesn't want to do because they feel they don't have a problem.

I've heard of DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and also have heard that it's hard work but can be helpful.

It sounds like you and your family have been down a hard and painful road with your mother-in-law's narcissism and the negative effects it has had on your family. But, it also sounds like that situation years ago with you wife witnessing her mom verbally abusing one of your sons was a good turning point for your family to work toward good changes. Hopefully, things will continue on a good road for your family.

Yeap, psychologists and psychotherapists often run from BPD, but those who do only carry very few in their counseling practice. One reason they don't change is that they don't stick with their therapist or the therapist drops them because the BPD refuses to respect their boundaries. I've read that along with individual therapy and meds the most effective therapy technique for a BPD to experience and participate in on more than an intellectual level is a group therapy called DBT which I understand is extremely hard work. Even after that, the BPD must continue to work with a therapist for the rest of their life. I know some about this because my wife struggled with some borderline traits having been raised by a mother with undiagnosed narcissism with borderline traits according to one of my wife's therapists in the past. However, having looked over the books on the borderline mom and more, her identical twin sister who was raised more by her nurturing passive dad than her abusive mom thinks along with me that mom is a borderline queen mother dearest. Anyway, her mom has a severe personality disorder. Years ago, when my wife witnessed her mother being verbally abusive of our young boys like she had done with her and her sister, she decided to no longer be afraid of her mom, but to set some firm boundaries. That was the start of some very good changes that helped our whole family.

Thanks, cmagnum. I had never heard of F.O.G, but you hit the nail on the head. And, your comment about changing the person being blackmailed is also right on the money. From my perspective, this is about blackmailers educating themselves. A family dynamics class I took that focused on the effects of emotional blackmailing, narcissism, substance abuse, etc. when a family member has these pathologies, opened my eyes big time. When dealing with an emotional blackmailer/narcissist, etc., what it comes down to is both clear and strong boundary setting and learning to inoculate yourself from the mental pathology and its manifestations by putting on some heavy mental armor to fend off the manipulation and blackmail. Basically, what those of us who have an emotional blackmailer in our lives need to learn is detachment, healthy reattachment if even possible (this is sometimes not possible) and understanding and realizing the dangers of enmeshment with an emotional blackmailer so that you can detach from them. It's what can be termed as learning to pull the velcro off of the sweater and replacing the sweater with metal armor that allows the blackmail, manipulation, etc. to simply slide off and not re-enmesh us.

When dealing with a narcissist, you have to make a real concerted effort and really fight hard to overcome the F.O.G. But in no way should you feel guilty or responsible because generally (unless you're also a narcissist) you're not the problem. It's the narcissist.

I read that even psychologists and the like don't want to deal with BPD folks because they mostly do not change and are very tough cases.

Reading some more on this site makes me wonder if there are degrees of how narcissistic a parent might be. In other words, are there some narcissists who are not as difficult to deal with than others?

Also, I question if it is realistic to expect a person who is working on their freedom from a narcissist's dance of emotional blackmail through F.O.G. to always be their direct caregiver?

Also, does a person always have to have a personality disorder to be someone who pulls emotional blackmail on someone?

I did read an article online "The Emotionally Abusive Personality: Is She a Borderline or a Narcissist?"

It is very interesting in its outline of the differences and similarities. The biggest distinction that I noted what that the borderline can be lead to see their ways, to learn empathy, and it is easier to feel sympathy for the borderline than for the narcissist. But neither need our pity for they will play off of that. . While there is a slight possibility of change for the borderline, there is not for the narcissist.

Set your boundaries and I think they will either change how they relate with you or they will get the message that the relationship is ending.

Now that I have learned how to recognize and how to not respond to FOG with my family I am realizing that I want to end a thirty year friendship with a girl friend of mine. I have zero tolerance for her now. How do I tell her this? I don't want to hurt her but she is has been hurtful to me. She complains that I haven't seen her and she has gone out of her way to see me. (yah, I want to avoid her but she is not getting the message.) Any suggestions?

I truly don't know what I would do without all of the kind spirited lovably souls on this forum. Thank you so ever much. Just having a rough roll of a time right now.

Overwhelm, I know exactly how you feel. I have a bit of OCD, and I feel everything has to be perfect. And trying to deal with my parents, who still live on their own, it is throwing up speed bumps for my OCD.

I have been able to finally de-stress just by saying *no*..... but it took me having major surgery and mega recovery time to use as a great excuse to saying *no*. I am going to extend this recovery time for all it is worth :)

overwhelm - you are NOT the manipulator or narcissist. You are NOT the one creating FOG. Even the fact that you feel that way shows that you are not. No narcissist blames him or her self.

Hmm well I suffer from OCD and we feel guilty as it is. I don;t know if anyone here understands OCD? Sometimes I feel I am the manipulator or Narcissist, or the one causing the F.O.G.

How it’s defeated.

Defeating emotional blackmail in our lives does not mean changing the person doing the blackmailing, but involves changes inside of the person being blackmailed. Since this involves internal changes, it is a very difficult thing to accomplish and very often requires the assistance of a therapist.

So, how do we stop enabling the manipulator’s emotional blackmail?

1. We must recognize our own part in this psychological/emotional dance that by complying with it we have been rewarding bad behavior.

2. Stop focusing on their behavior and thinking that their changing will make things better.

3. Accept that they are how they are and are very likely not going to change.

4. We did not make the person doing the emotional blackmail the way they are. We can’t change them nor can we fix them. All we can really do is to place ourselves on a healthier path of living. We can change how we react to their emotional blackmail.

5. Recognize that our experience of emotional blackmail has contributed to our being in an emotional state called the Stockholm Syndrome which enables the belief that our escape is impossible. The Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological response seen in abuse victims where the victim is loyal to and often defensive of the abuser. It is an emotional bond formed between the victim and the person in power as a survival mechanism.

6. Recognize that the belief that our escape is impossible is a false and irrational belief. We are not helpless. Change and freedom can, must and will start with us.

7. Promise yourself to no longer let Fear, Obligation and Guilt control your life.

8. Learn and practice the necessary skills and strategies.

9. Learn from your lapses into being controlled by F.O.G., hone your strategies and refuse to let mistake allow you to give up.

10. Take good care of yourself during this process and acknowledge as well as encourage yourself for making steps forward no matter how small.

11. Remember that the abuse we experience is not our fault. We do deserve to be treated better.

12. Set new and reasonable boundaries for the relationship.

13. Set concrete consequences for if and when these boundaries are broken.

14. Instead of answering or complying immediately, buy yourself some time to think and come up with an appropriate response. For example. “I don’t have an answer right now. I need some time to think” or “I’m not sure how I feel about what you are asking. Let us discuss this later,”

15. Detach or let go of your emotional ties to being controlled and become an objective observer by questioning your thoughts and feelings as well as those of the person seeking to inflict emotional blackmail. This is a process. The longer you have been complying with their demands, the more self-discipline it will take to no overreact or be triggered. Also, focus on the demand at hand and not all of the past history. This is a key area where a therapist can be very helpful.

16. Avoid using defensive communication techniques that only serve to escalate the conflict. For example, “I’m not selfish. How can you say that about me?” or “How about the time I…….”

17. Use non defensive communication techniques to defuse or reduce the conflict. For example, “I’m sorry you are upset.” “I can understand how you might view it that way.” “Really? That’s interesting.” “Let’s talk about it when you feel calmer.”

18. Stay call, don’t argue, don’t defend, don’t explain, always stay polite, and if possible use humor.

19. Use the suggestions from Susan Forward’s book, Emotional Abuse: When People Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You, for responding to catastrophic predictions and threats; to name-callling, labeling and negative judgments; and to the deadly whys and hows-demanding a rationalization and explanation for your decisions.

20. Dealing with the person who expresses their anger covertly through silent sulcking are quite a challenge. I found the following suggestions for dealing with this type online.

Frist, don’t expect them to make the first step. Second, don’t plead with them to tell you what is wrong. Third, don’t keep after them for a response. Fourth, don’t criticize, analyze, or interpret their motives or inability to be direct. Fifth, don’t willingly accept blame for whatever they are upset about to immediately get them into a better mood. Sixth, don’t allow them to change the subject. Seventh, don’t let the tension and the anger in the air get to you. Ninth, don’t let your frustration cause you to make threats that you don’t really mean. Tenth, don’t assume that if they ultimately apologize, it will be followed by a significant change in their behavior. Eleventh, don’t expect major personality changes, even if they recognize what they are doing and are willing to work on it.

Instead, confront them when they are more ready to hear what you have to say; reassure them that they can tell you what they are angry about and you will listen without retaliating; say reassuring things like “I know you are angry right now, and I will be willing to listen to this as soon as you are ready to talk about it”-then leave them alone; and accept the fact that you will have to make the first move, most, if not all, of the time.

21. Face the reality that not all relationships can be saved for the person will just continue to break your boundaries and keep trying to emotionally blackmail you. For the sake of your own safety and health, try hard to recognize early if the relationship is even work working on.

22. Remember that no matter what happens, you can handle fear, you can handle frustration, pain, big losses, anger, sadness, embarrassment, responsibility, and guilt.

23. Don’t expect there not to be some resistance to your boundaries, taking better care of yourself and setting consequences for when and if your boundaries are broken. They are use to having you under their control and they are afraid of losing you and your compliance for without your compliance they are powerless.

24. Change is a scary word for many of us.

25. Change will not come by gaining insights into the various dynamics of emotional blackmail.

26. Change will not happen just because we understand why we dong the self-defeating behavior that we do. Understanding alone will not make us stop doing them.

27. Change will only happen when we change our behavior!

28. We have to take the first step down a new and healthier road!

These suggestions come either from Susan Forward’s book, Emotional Blackmail:When People Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You, and from various site online on this subject.

overwhelm - in your case, you are being manipulated - (jerked around) by your mother and step dad who use FOG - fear, obligation and guilt - to get you to do what they want you to do. They say things so you feel that you owe them, you are afraid to leave them, and so on, while, in fact you are an adult woman who can make her own decisions about her life and who doesn't owe them anything. Don't be afraid to arrange care for your mum and then leave and go on with your own life. They won't like it because they have you there as a servant, but some one else can look after them just as well.

Here is a link to an interesting blog about The Narcissist's Child and Emotional Blackmail.

narcissistschild.blogspot.

overwhelm,

1. Who is feeling this?

The person being emotionally blackmailed is the one feeling the fear, obligation and guilt.

2. What it is?

Emotional blackmail is a powerful version of manipulation by making us feel 1. afraid of crossing the person. 2. obligated to give them their way to keep from provoking their anger, and 3. terribly guilty if we don't.

It is a thick and engulfing psychological F.O.G. that blinds us from seeing what they are doing.

3. What is its effects?

Thus, we walk on eggshells around the person and our compliance rewards their emotional blackmail. Every time we reward their efforts by being compliant, we let them know that they can do it again. It eats away at us until it puts our relationship and our whole sense of self respect is in jeopardy. Thus we get locked into an emotional dance of letting them control our decisions and behavior.

Basically, we come to feel insecure, unimportant, unworthy and generally bad about ourselves. We begin to doubt our own ideas and needs. We become isolated. We may have physical ailments or reduced mental health due to the stress. We may even betray and abandon our relationships with other people in our attempts to placate the emotional blackmailer.

We get trained by the emotionally blackmailer to constantly seek their approval, to do our best to avoid their anger and keeping the peace at all costs, and to take the blame that is not ours to take.

Our sense of obligation to them and to keeping the peace becomes so strong that it is more powerful than our sense of self-respect and boundaries of self-caring. Emotional blackmailers work toward this goal and take full advantage of it when accomplished.

4. Who is doing this?

The person seeking to emotionally blackmail us presses our emotional buttons in order to get us to feel fear, obligation and guilt.

Very often this emotional blackmailer has a great fear of abandonment and deprivation. They often feel the need to be the one in control, feel desperate, and are frequently frustrated. Usually, they have been a victim of emotional blackmail themselves; have learned how to do it; and see that it works to get what they want. However, they are so caught up in themselves that they don't think clearly about the reasonableness of their demands. They are skilled at making their demands sound very reasonable although they aren't.

They have different styles. Their pour boundaries leads them to sometimes combine one of the four basic styles with another one.

First, there is the Punisher who lets us know exactly what they want, the consequences we will face if not complied with, and are the most obvious as well as strong. They either express their disapproval in explosive aggressive anger or in smoldering silence. At the most terrifying extreme are threats of physical harm.

Second, there is the Self-punsiher. They turn their threats inward on themselves by threatening what they will do to themselves if they don't get their way. They are drama queens and kings with an air of hysterical crisis which they blame us for creating of course. They often will enmesh themselves with us because they struggle with taking responsibility for their own lives. The most frightening extreme of this is when they threaten to kill themselves if we do not comply.

Third, there are the sufferers who are talented guilt peddlers and blamers. They make us figure out what they want and lead us to conclude that it is up to us to get them what they want, even if they have not told us what they want. They are pre-occupied with how terrible they feel and interpret our inability to read their minds as proof that we don't love them.

Fourth, there are the Tantalizers who will put us through a series of tests and hold out a promise of something wonderful if we will just give them what they want. They are the subtlest blackmailers who promise all sorts of things with the clear understanding that unless we behave according to their wishes, we will not get the prize. Everything from them is seductively wrapped with a web of strings attached. Many will seek to make deals of emotional payoffs, castles of love in the sky, unconditional acceptance, family closeness, healed wounds, and other appealing fantasies whose admission ticket into only requires one thing, compliance. They have not intent on following through with their fantastic promises for once they have what they want, they have won and we are left with broken promises.

People with various personality disorders are predisposed to inflicting emotional blackmail such as persons with obsessive compulsive disorder, paranoid personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder. Those with a borderline personality disorder tend to do this more impulsively instead of making a plan like those with a narcissistic personality do.

What they really need deep down inside is legit, but the problem occurs in how they go about trying to meet those needs by being insensitive to the needs of others in doing so as well as being insensitive to how others are reacting to their manipulation or that it is not right to make someone their emotional hostage.

5. How do they do this?

The basic threat of emotional blackmail is that if you don't do what I want, you will suffer the consequences. They know our vulnerabilities and they use that knowledge to shape their threats to give them the results they want, our compliance. Knowing that we want their love and approval, they will threaten to end the relationship if we don't give in or make us feel that we must earn it by being compliant. They will often use money like threatening to change their Will to get our compliance.

They will regularly discount our feelings and wants by calling us selfish when we express them and claiming that we must no longer love them. They will either say or imply that they will hurt themselves, kill themselves, or become depressed if we don't give into their demands.

They create undeserved guilt by blaming us for whatever is upsetting them or for whatever problems that they are having. There are not statue of limitations as they create this neutron bomb that wears away the trust and intimacy that makes us want to be with them.

They spin our conflicts with them into being examples of how misguided and off base we are while they claim to be all wise and well intentioned. They spin any resistance on our part as evidence that we are flawed, not them. Their spin serves to discredit our perceptions of how the situation really is by challenging our character, motives and worth through labeling us as heartless, selfish or worthless which are very hard to withstand when said by a parent.

Others pathologize any resistance from us as an example of our being the sick one or crazy. Being pathologized by a parent or spouse yields a devastating blow to our sense of self and confidence and serves as quite an effective toxic tool which makes us doubt our memories, our judgement, our intelligence, and our character to the point where we may even doubt our own sanity.

6. What are the origins of this.

Emotional blackmailers hate to loose. For them, it is not important how they play their game as long as they don't lose. To an emotional blackmailer, keeping our trust, respecting how we feel, or being fair does not matter. The usual give and take of a normal, healthy relationship does not exist for them for it is all about them, what they want, and their getting what they want for themselves.

7. Why it is so victorious?

When we have an excessive need for approval from others, an intense fear of dealing with anger, an overwhelming need for peace at any price, very deep self-doubt, and a tendency to take too much responsibility for other's lives, we are both easy targets and easy to keep in such an emotional prison.

These traits make it extremely difficult to break free even when we are aware that we are being emotionally blackmailed because their pressure sets off almost programmed responses in you that sends you into auto-pilot and impulsive reactions to comply with our abuser.

Another issue that makes it so victorious on some people is something called co-dependency. This involves putting a lower than normal priority on our own needs while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others.

The above is a summary from Susan Ford's book, Emotional Blackmail: When People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You. It also includes some input from my research online.

When you say F.O.G. fear, obligation, guilt who is feeling this or doing it?

I believe society places us into these positions whether we are qualified to be caregivers or not.

And with dealing with someone who we are caring, be it hands-on or watching from afar [be it just next door or the other side of the world], that elderly or ill person is afraid because their independence has been lost and he/she is afraid that the caregiver will disappear, too.... thus the feeling of emotional blackmail to keep us closer.